After having a preliminary understanding of social media promotion, sellers also need to use some strategies to promote store products in order to achieve better promotion results. Before implementing promotion strategies, sellers need to first select the appropriate social media and then carry out promotion activities on the selected social media. The following will explain the platform selection strategy and platform promotion strategy.
1. Platform selection strategy
The first thing sellers need to do in the process of social media promotion is to choose the platform. Foreign social media platforms mainly include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
After sellers understand the characteristics of major foreign social media platforms, they also need to analyze their own brand characteristics, product features, target market, target consumer groups, etc. Then, sellers can choose the appropriate social media platform to carry out promotion activities according to their needs.
For example, if the seller sells cameras and their accessories, and the main target group is young women who love photography, then Pinterest and Instagram, two picture sharing platforms, can be selected for promotion.
2. Platform promotion strategy
Sellers can carry out promotion activities on social media platforms by adopting three strategies: visual content, timely reply to information, and keep pushing messages.
(1) Use visual content
Social media platform promotion features diversified content forms. Studies have shown that the effect of a one-minute video is equivalent to 18 million words. Among the many online shared and exchanged contents, the sharing and exchange rate of visual content such as pictures and videos ranks first. On Facebook, picture information receives 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more clicks than text information. This shows that visual content such as pictures and videos is more easily accepted by buyers than pure text content. Therefore, instead of going to great lengths to describe the appearance and functions of the product, it is better to publish a video of the actual experience of the product to attract more buyers. For example, sellers of fashionable women’s clothing can post real buyer shows on their social homepages to attract buyers to watch.
(2) Reply to information in a timely manner
Compared with other promotion methods, the most prominent feature of social media promotion is its strong interactivity, which enables sellers and buyers to achieve two-way communication on social media platforms. Sellers should ensure timely responses to comments and increase interactions on social media, so as to establish an emotional relationship with buyers in a subtle way and improve buyer loyalty. For example, when a women’s clothing seller sends a push notification of new clothing for the season, a buyer forwards it and comments, “I like the third skirt, it would be nice if it was red.” Then the seller should reply promptly to ask if there is any red clothing, and do his best to retain the buyer.
(3) Keep the message push
Some sellers register an account on social media and stop posting messages after promoting for a period of time. If the seller is not active in the buyer’s field of vision for a period of time, the promotion effect will be greatly reduced. Social media promotion is a long-term promotion activity. During the promotion process, sellers can not only release promotional activities on specific festivals in the target market, but also conduct daily interactions on weekdays to enable buyers to participate in brand building and word-of-mouth communication. For example, a cross-border e-commerce enterprise seller engaged in fitness clothing can post weight loss recipes, healthy work and rest time, etc. on social platforms to urge buyers to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Today, in the era of relationship-oriented promotion, social media, with its natural “strong interaction” attribute, closely connects sellers and buyers and helps sellers achieve the purpose of store promotion. Sellers engaged in cross-border e-commerce should pay enough attention to social media and make social media a truly effective store promotion method through refined operations.